How a dacoit can seek warm welcome, asks Imran

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman, Imran Khan, on Wednesday ridiculed the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s call for according him warm welcome upon his return, saying how could a dacoit seek such treatment.

“Clap for me; how big dacoit I am. He will come in Lahore waving hands to public, who was caught after having money laundered Rs300 billion. This happens when there is no supremacy of law,” Imran asserted, while speaking here at a minority convention. Had a prime minister, a minister or a member of parliament, he pointed out, been caught in Britain indulging in money laundering, he would have not been able to come out or give interviews.

Imran recalled that how an intoxicated American hit two Pakistanis, killing one and disabling the other for life, went back home, as Pakistani law could not catch him. “Had a Pakistani diplomat been caught in the US or the West, he would have been jailed,” he maintained. He emphasised it was the state's responsibility to provide basic rights to the underprivileged segments of the society.

Imran pointed out: "Minorities were given rights in the Madinah's welfare state. But the weak don't get their due rights in Pakistan, all weak segments are deprived of their basic rights." He referred to the Western societies and said: "The more developed a society, the more protected are the weak from the powerful. I have to say it with regret that I receive a lot of complaints from the Hindu community in Sindh that women belonging to the minority are forcefully married to Muslims." He added it is not right to force anyone to embrace Islam. Imran said: “The Constitution has guaranteed that the state will provide education and health facilities to the people but what does the common man actually get? Facilities are only available to a small segment of the society."

He lamented that 25 million children are out of school, which is the basic responsibility of a state. Imran added that in the West, a state would finance the unemployed citizens, as long as they are out of job and also provide free legal aid to deserving citizens.